Escalier Joséphin Soulary

This guide to Escalier Joséphin Soulary in Lyon traces the life of the nineteenth-century librarian and sonnet poet the staircase is named for, from his birth here in 1815 through his rise to curator of the Palais des Arts library and two Académie française prizes. It follows how the street was renamed for him within a year of his 1891 death, and how a grander tribute rose nearby on Place Chazette in 1895, a bronze muse and a sculpted bust by a young Lyon sculptor named Suchetet. You'll hear what became of that monument during the German occupation, when metal grew scarce across the city. Count the four hundred and forty-two steps as you climb past his old front door toward Saint Clair.